Database settings for multicultural support

Choosing the code page, territory, and collation for your database
The database code page determines what characters you can store in the database. For example, if the database code page is 819, then only English and western European characters can be stored in the database. A code page is a numeric value given to a named code set.
Supported territory codes and code pages
The following tables show the languages and code sets supported by the database servers, and how these values are mapped to territory code and code page values that are used by the database manager.
Locale names for SQL and XQuery
When used in an SQL or XQuery statement, a locale name consists of one or more ordered pieces of information. The CLDR version prefix, language code, script code, country/region code, and variant codes must be separated with the underscore character (_). Keywords are introduced with the commercial at symbol (@) and multiple keywords are separated by the semicolon character (;).
Derivation of code page values
The application code page is derived from the active environment when the database connection is made. When you create a database, you can explicitly specify the database code page. If you do not specify the database code page, the database uses Unicode by default.
Linux and UNIX distributions and code pages
Newer versions of Linux® distributions and UNIX operating systems (such as AIX®) are starting to use Unicode (UTF-8) as the default code page for many of their locales.

Parent topic: Multicultural support